Sunday, October 28, 2012

Congratulations
Tamaz!His decisive victory over GM Sam
Shankland set the tone for an important match victory.He's on a serious roll.

Thanks
to the league and judges for the nomination and 2nd place finish.Grandmaster Ben Finegold won a very nice
positional game, and NM Kevin Wang deserves a mention for his well-played upset
against the great GM Boris Gulko.

What would you play?

Other
than 14. ..Kh8, not one of Chase's
moves deserved a '?', and that one can only be assigned with hindsight.Black has a serious positional dilemma.His bishops should provide a long-term
advantage, but he lacks space and must protect c7 and e7.The king move is ambitious, threatening f7-f5
if white 'passes' (e.g. 15. a3 f5 and white is significantly worse) and nearly
equalizing if white castles: 15. 0-0 f5 16. ef ef 17. Rfe1 f5 18. Ne7! (the
only move to even have a shred of edge) Ne7 19. Bb7 Qb7 19. Qe7 Bf6 20. Qe6
Qb6! 22. c3 Qe6 23. Re6 Bg7 24. Re7 Rad8! with counterplay.

Black
is lost after 15. h4,which prevents f7-f5 with tactics (15.
..f5 16. ef ef 17. h5! winning) and 15. ..h6 allows white will to attack on the
b1-h7 diagonal. The game continued 15.
..h5 16. g4!(D) and 16. ..hg has
been undeservedly criticized.The most
precise was 17. Qg5, forcing a transposition to the game, but h4-h5 was
sufficient to win.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Team chess played at G/90 or faster is exciting.A shift on one board can change the entire
match. A player intent on making a draw, content with his team's margin, can be
forced to play for the win.A lost
position, previously coupled with poor chances on the other boards, can turn
into a no-risk shot at a match victory.The 'won game' conversion can prove difficult when victory lap turns
into a fight for two, or even three results for the team.

The Knights remain undefeated through six weeks, but
that "solid plus two" record belies the twists and turns of the
season's first half.Here's a short
recap of some pivotal moments.

Week
1

A tough match against uptown rival Manhattan left the
Knights trailing 2-1, as Michael Bodek's victory against Oleg Zaikov on board 3
was outweighed by Vladimir Romanenko's GOTW performance against Tamaz
Gelashvili on board 1 and Alex King's win over Nicolas Checa on board 4.

Alex Lenderman was in a must win situation on board 2
against Lev Milman.Milman, despite a
slightly worse position out of the opening, played aggressively and creatively,
running his king into the heart of white's position: c8-d7-e6-d5-c4-b3-b2 and
disdaining equality with 37. ..b6 and 38. ..a5, creating an outside passed pawn,
later sacrificing a piece to enable it to reach a2.

Alex conducted the game with remarkable composure,
aiming for the last remaining winning chances - an exchange sacrifice that left
white with two connected queenside passers.Alex had just played 45. c3-c4

The 2012 USCL schedule emphasized inter-division play,
with three cross-matches and a single-round-robin against your home
division.The Los Angeles Vibe proved a
formidable opponent, as Zhanibek Amanov outplayed Alex Lenderman on board 2 and
Nicky Korba, with his position deteriorating, received a gift from Isaac
Barayev's miscalculation (backward-looking defenses are tricky!) on board
4.Justus Williams won a very smooth
game for the Knights on board 3, grinding down Michael Casella in a Maroczy
Bind.

For the second straight week, a Knight GM had the
white pieces and a must-win to hold the match.Tamaz Gelashvili unfortunately missed an early opportunity to put the
game away with 23. Rd2! trapping Andranik Matikozyan's queen

with 48. ..Rb1-f1, when keeping the R
in touch with the 5th rank (anywhere on the b-file, or to the left of e1) would
have maintained the draw.After 49.
f2-f4!, black had to play 49. ..Kf6 to stop the white K from reaching g5 and then
resigned after 50. g7 Rh1 51. Kg3 Rg1 52. Kf3 as the pawn ending is lost.

Week
3

The Knights and Blitz have a long and evenly-matched
rivalry and have represented the East in the finals five of the last six
years.Boston was looking for redemption
after last year's collapse in the conference semifinals.The final score of 3.5-0.5 reflected Boston
missing critical opportunities on boards 1, 3 and 4 and scoring a dismal 0.5/3
on those boards.I managed to outplay
MVP-candidate Kazim Gulamali on board 2.

Michael Vilenchuk's miss against Justus Williams on
board 3 was the most dramatic. Justus had just played 39. Ne4??

planning to re-route his
queen to e5 and N to f6 and later d5, consolidating a slightly better
position.Vilenchuk had 39. ..Qd1 40.
Kg2 h3! 41. Kh3 Qh5 42. Kg2 Nh4! picking up the queen on a5 - one for the
tactics books!

Week
4

San Francisco proved a tough opponent in week 4 and
looked to have at least the match draw in hand.Michael Bodek and Yian Liou drew quickly in a Berlin on board 3 and
Daniel Naroditsky's fine opening preparation and determined play beat me on
board 2.

Alex Katz played a wild game against Kesav Viswanadha
on board 4, both following theory/Houdini well past move twenty.

Viswanadha was the first to err with 30.
..Kb8?, further disconnecting his rooks (instead 30. ..Kb6! seems to be
accurate). 31. ..Rd8 (31. ..Ra7 allows black to stay in the game after 32. fe8Q
Qe8) compounded the error and left Alex on the brink of victory after 32. Re7
Ne7 33. Re7 Qc8 34. Qd4 Qc6

Alex started correctly with 35. Qb4 Kc8 (if 35. ..Qb5,
then 36. f8Q! wins immediately) and repeated moves with 36. Qg4 Kb8, but erred
with 37. Qg8 when 37. Qb4 Kc8 38. Qf4! (threatening f8Q) Rf8 39. Qh6 simply
wins as black cannot defend his back rank.After 37. ..Rc8 38. c3 Qc4 only 39. Qg3 held the edge.Katz blundered again with 39. Re8 Qf1 40. Kd2
Qf2 41. Kd3 Qf1 42. Ke3 Kb7 43. Qh7 and after 43. ..Kb6, his position was
critical.The match dynamic came into
play as it wasn't clear who was playing for the win!

Viswanadha returned the favor with 49. ..Qd5?? (49.
..Qd3! 50. Kf4 Rc4 and wins) and finally 50. Re8 deserved exclaims, leading to
a winning endgame.

But that was not all!Giorgi Kacheishvili played an impressive game with the black pieces
against Jesse Kraai on board 1, squeezing the most out of a slightly better
endgame.Kraai's last chance to hold
came on move 83

The Connecticut Dreadnoughts built an impressive
roster for their USCL debut (replacing our Championship opponents, the Chicago
Blaze), headlined by Yale undergrad Robert Hess and significantly underrated
Mikheil Kekelidze and Joshua Colas.

Nicolas Checa fought incredibly hard on board 4 before
missing the strong retreating maneuver 42. Qa7 Kc8 43. Ra6-a1! and lost to
Joshua Colas.Giorgi Kacheishvili and
Robert Hess played a quick draw on board 1, as Hess's 7.. dc novelty killed the
line.Pascal Charbonneau fell into deep
time trouble trying to solve Kekelidze's Exchange Slav at the board, but
eventually wrested control of the game and was pressing for the win in a
rook+knight ending before a miscalculation let Kekelidze find a narrow path to
a draw.Justus Williams won a crazy game
against Dreadnought captain Ian Harris on board 3.After eschewing 25. Nd4! cd 26. Qd4 when only
white can win, the game got messy and Harris had a significant chance on move
37.

Another week - another escape!The Dallas Destiny won two straight USCL
championships in 2007 and 2008, but have not returned to the finals since.After a disappointing year in 2011, they
opened a significant margin in the West during the first half.At one point, this match looked headed for a
significant defeat.Isaac Barayev
blundered a piece in the opening (though Travis Guenther only 'managed' to win
two pawns) on board 4 and Alec Getz outplayed Alex Katz to reach what looked to
be an overwhelming position on board 3.Pascal Charbonneau could not find activity against Conrad Holt on board
2 and was slowly ground down in a Kings Indian.Tamaz's position was better than it looked, but Chirila was in the
driver's seat on board 1 with black.A
Dallas player even kibitzed: "looks like 4-0."

Chirila overreached (he was never more than slightly
better) on board 1 and gave Tamaz a technically winning R+B vs. R+N
ending.Isaac kept playing good moves
and Guenther finally blundered with

Barayev did not miss his chance and played 40. ..g5!,
generating enough counterplay to draw the game.

Pascal lost on board 2 and the match still looked
firmly in Dallas's control, with Getz pressing Katz (who was under 1 minute) on
board 3.

Getz has a few ways to maintain his advantage, with
the cleanest being 56. ..Rc8! 57. Qe2 Qe2 58. Ke2 Rc2 59. Kf3 Rc3 60. Kf2 Re3,
winning the e4 pawn and the game.Getz
was impetuous and played 56. .. d4-d3??, which would also win on the spot if
not for Katz's reply: 57. Qf2-a7!, after which black is lucky that he is not
mated or just losing after 57. ..Rf7 58. Rh7! Kh7 59. Qf7.With no win there, the players agreed to a
draw and the match ended 2-2.